The Kevin Sheehan Show - Riverboat Wrong

Episode Date: October 19, 2020

Cooley and Kevin today recapped Washington's 20-19 loss to the Giants in the Meadowlands. Did Riverboat Ron make the right call on going for the 2-point conversion after Kyle Allen's touchdown pass to Cam Sims? The boys debated that then got to their in-depth "game-takes". They discussed the current Washington QB situation, went "Around the NFL", and previewed tonight's MNF double-header.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

You don't want it. You don't need it. But you're going to get it anyway. The Kevin Cheon Show. Here's Kevin. Here's the game. Looking. Stop it.

Pumping. Throw it incomplete. And there it was. The decision to go win the game because Ron Rivera-Cooley is not coming to lose the game. He's got to teach his guys how to win the game. And they missed the two-point conversion. not a play that had much of a chance unless you think that Kyle Allen could have sprinted past Jabrill Peppers into the end zone for the two-point conversion. But we got a lot to get to.

Coolie's here. I'm here. It's a Cooley and Kevin Monday. It's a recap of the Giants lost, 20 to 19. The football team is 1 and 5 and headed nowhere. This season, I don't care what the standings look like. They're the team in the division that people are getting excited about to see on their schedule. Not the teams that are on Washington schedule.

But there was a lot that I liked and a lot I didn't like. And you've got your us. No, your ums and your us. And we'll go around the NFL because there's some performances yesterday. We have to talk about, including Derek Henry's and the Tampa Bay defense, which I think might be one of the best defenses in the NFL. Good morning to you. How are you?

I'm great. What did you think of the two-point play? Were you in favor? I hated it. Yeah. Do you want to know what I, let me tell you what happened. I'm listening. I'm actually behind the game just enough that I can fast forward.

So I fast forward through what I think is the PAT. I don't, I'm not even considering going for two at that point. Get back up and we're, we got an onsites kick lined up. Time out. Wait a minute, you didn't watch it live. You, you watched it after the fact. This is the first time you're telling me this. I have no way to watch that game live.

Well, you could get direct TV. I could get direct TV. That is the way. But if I watch it on Game Pass, I can start it at 2 o'clock my time. And to be honest with you, I didn't look at one thing. I waited so I could honestly watch the game. Really? I did other things.

What did you do? What were the other things that you did? Well, right away, and you're going to hear this throughout the day, we got a new puppy over the weekend. You did tell me you were getting a new puppy. And how is that new terrier? It is, um, its name's Lenny.

Lenny? What kind of dog is it? I think you said it was some... German short hair. Okay. So he is about eight weeks old. So he's in the studio with me, whimpering and whining.

So we played with the dog, went to breakfast. I'm building lockers in my garage for storage space. So I just occupied myself for three hours. Right. Without technology. Hmm. Interesting.

Got my phone back for the first time over the weekend, which is nice. But didn't watch the game. So that said, two-point play situation. I fast forwarded through the break. I didn't see them line up for a two-point play. And I went, whoa, whoa, whoa. Obviously, I can see they didn't get it. but I'm thinking even at that point,

the Hopkins miss a PAT, so I go back. Oh, right. You, it's possible that you thought he missed the PAT at that point. Right. Well,

I mean, it's probably not, anything under 35 is right in his range. Well, that's 37 or 38, so. Yeah, right.

Maybe a little. I mean, anything, really anything in the mid-40s to less, right in his range. Right. It's 48 plus. We're talking problem.

I hated it. I don't know how you feel about it, but I'll go into multiple levels. One, if you're really rolling on offense and you're really making plays and you believe they're not going to stop you, you're still playing those odds of 50-50 at best of giving that play. I mean, maybe you got the play of the year, which clearly they didn't have. But they also, the context wasn't there that they were really rolling. bowling on offense. They weren't running it. Their first down plays throughout the game were dismal and poor. It just didn't make any sense to me in that moment. Two, I get this idea

that you're afraid to go to overtime with the Giants. To me, you can't just say I want to win the game, okay? You just can't because you can still win the game. You didn't want to go to overtime with the Giants. I've said this to you multiple times. I thought Washington was at least as good if not better. If you feel like you're as good or if not better, theoretically you should want more plays. A better team is going to end up having more success with more plays.

Not less plays, more plays. Three, the game wasn't over at that point anyways. There was still 36 seconds left. That's right. Giants were going to get the ball. You could have made a play on defense. defense. They could have still, you could have got the two point, had jubilation. They could have still went down and kicked a fulg and won it on the other side. It wasn't a last second play.

No, it wasn't for the win. It was for the lead. I tried to explain that this morning on the radio show because you have, you've clearly been disconnected, which is going to be great for this show. And I mean that in all sincerity, because I'm going to get to read some of the reverend quotes to you. one of which is he believes that the only way to learn to win is to play to win and that's what I... No, you're right. You cannot win in overtime.

That is evident. Yeah, apparently not. Apparently not. Apparently it just means that you're going to be in a tie. Look, I didn't mean to lead with this because, but it was the last play of the last meaningful play of the game. The onside kick, by the way,

was just feeble. just a pitiful attempt. But anyway, we might as well start with this because it's what a lot of you were talking about after the game. Let me just, I want to just begin with this. The fact that he went for the two, it was the wrong probability play in my view based on the context, and you've described it as well. But, you know, I really, it's funny, I wanted him to win, I guess, but I'm just not passionate.

I'm not dying on Sundays anymore watching these games. It's just, you know, they're a bad football team. They're playing a bad football team. They're in a hideous division. Whatever go for it. Who cares? But I want to start with this before I get to a couple of thoughts on it. Sally, who you know I love reading Sally.

She's the only one in the post. And I like Barry and I like Dave and I like some of the people. Don't get me wrong. But when Sally writes a column, I always love reading it because I think she's really a brilliant writer and a provost. of writer, even though I probably agree with her, I don't know, maybe 50, 60% of the time. But I'm going to read to you the first paragraph because it's perfect, even though I completely disagree with it. He's the one that has to live with the call, not them. The second guessers can

bury their noses in the analytics all they want or make another notation in their thinking man's guide to coaching from a recliner. But the fact is, Ron Rivera's decision to gamble was at least firm and there was a lot to liken that. Most of the people who will criticize him for have trouble deciding off a menu. That's why they're watching with a cushion under them. I love Sally the way she writes. And that leads me to my fourth thing, which is why they call him Riverboat Ron. Because he doesn't really know when to gamble and when not to gamble. No, no. He doesn't know when to hit that 16 against the 10 or to stay on that 16 against the 10. He's not, there's no commitment to his choices in any given moment.

At one point, he'll go for a fourth and four. Another moment, I'm fourth and one. He's going to punt. Yeah. It's all gut based. Yeah. He's Riverboat Ron, because he's random Riverboat Ron sitting at the casino and Billy's next to him and Timmy and they're like, ah, you could, you could do it.

split those tens, Ron. Split them. This deck's loaded. It's a positive debt. Split them tens. Split those tens, Ron. You're not supposed to split a winning hand though, right? Come on, Ron.

Split them. Split the tens. And then he goes, okay, we'll split the tens. And then he gets four ten and then two ten. And then Jimmy looks at Billy and he's like, we cajole him into a change of heart. Look, just for Sally's purposes,

you know, when you are definitive and firm that kick it won, we're the better team right now, we're dominating them, let's take this overtime and kick their ass. That's firm. And just so everybody understands, playing to win doesn't exclude kicking the PAT as an answer to the question in that spot. Look, I, it's funny. I don't want to beat it to death because in the moment I'm like, yeah, whatever.

But I knew it was wrong. I knew that the probability for winning was better if they kicked and went to overtime. Why? Well, for a couple of the reasons that Cooley's already mentioned, if you go back to late in the third quarter, so an hour earlier, for one hour of this football game, the last hour, Washington ran 31 plays on offense. The Giants ran six. Washington had one bad play. The quarterback made a bad play trying to make a play fumbled,

and they returned it for their only points of the second half. Washington's defense was fresh. I personally, in the moment, context-wise, I thought it was advantage Washington if the game went to overtime. Now, somebody might say, well, I could use your reasoning to say that if the Giants were gassed, then just go for it and end it. Well, no, because I'd rather have many more chances to make plays than just have it come down to one play if I believe I have the advantage with more plays. I thought it was the wrong decision if the

goal was truly to win the game. I don't know if the goal's really to win the game anymore. I don't know what his goals are. I once again was more. sort of frustrated by the messaging afterwards. Like, I don't want to hear the only way to learn to win is to play to win. Well, kicking the PAT yesterday was playing to win. Probability-wise, more likely than not,

if you cared about what your best chance to play to win was, it was to kick the PAT. I'm sick of the platitude speak. Look, I like Ron, and I'm rooting for Ron, and I know Ron is going through a very difficult time. right now. But come on, man. I mean, you know, and here's the other part of a coolly. This is the best part. Four times in the post-game presser. I have a philosophy. I go for the win on the road. I play for the tie at home. When you're on the road, our attitude is we're going to play to win,

especially when there's that little time left, a half minute. Why not take that opportunity? All right? Then a little bit later. I really do believe you play to win when you're on the road as opposed to when you're at home you take a different approach. Has anybody told him that he's playing in empty stadiums? There is no home or road team other than uniform pick and the fact that one team doesn't have to travel and the other does? What is he talking about?

Stop! I mean, again, he's not with it. We get it right now. He is not himself. We've seen it now for a month and a half. You play for the win. First of all, that's a dumb take, okay? Playing for the win on the road and playing for the tie or overtime at home.

What does that even mean? Context should mean everything. Do I have the right play? Am I playing well offensively? What's the weather like? Where are we in overtime? Offensively, are we being completely shut down? Do they have the momentum?

that should all be a massive factor, as much as if you want to use analytics and math as an answer. But no, the advantage from my standpoint in terms of their chances to win the game, they were better if they had kicked the extra point and gone to overtime. That's me. I mean, you can choose what you want to choose, but it's more the comments after the game. I mean, dude, kicking the PAT can be the play to win the game.

That could be the right answer to win the game. It can be a firm answer, Sally. It can be very firm. We're going for one, damn it. We've been kicking their ass for the last hour. Let's take this into overtime and finish the job. That can be firm. We believe we're better than them.

Yeah. So we'll dominate them in overtime. And for God's takes, with 36 seconds left, who knows? Who the hell knows? Daniel Jones might throw a pick. Right. You might get an opportunity to win it. Exactly. You still had some timeouts left too.

You could have potentially had they gone incomplete on first down and complete. You could have used a timeout, got in the ball back and won it in regulation. And by the way, the point just to emphasize it, when he's saying we're going for the win, you're going for the lead with 36 seconds left. If there are five seconds left or 10 seconds left in the game, you're going for the win. Okay? understand that too. And yes, Cooley, you know what? The time left in the game, in addition to already thinking overtime was better for them, the time left in the game, you know, made it such

that the Giants still had a chance to do one of two things. One, get into range for a field goal in a tie game or down one, or give it back to Washington with a chance to get, of course, it's got to be like, you know, a 35-yard field goal for Hopkins these days. But, you know, for a chance to win the game in regulation. It's just he's not this. I think what's revealing about Rivera in the first six weeks, you know, the medical stuff has made him a little bit off. But what I'm sensing, and I've mentioned this before, the Panther fans, this was the most frustrating thing to Panther fans. He is a tough guy, disciplined.

I think he really can coach defense. And I think when he's got good players on defense, that defense can be nasty and really good and can really be the backbone of a winning team. But he's not brilliant by a long shot. And, you know, combined with the fact that he's a little bit off right now, we are getting messaging like, I can't remember from anybody but Zorn. Like this start to the season is Zornonian. It's Zornian. It's just, I'm still with them and I'm still going to try to remain optimistic. But I'd be dishonest if I told you that the first six weeks of the season haven't shaken my faith a little bit that they made the right call on the head coach.

There it is. There it is. Somebody tweeted me and said, Mr. Flipflop, you're with Haskins, now you're against him. You're with Rivera. Now you're, well, dude, you know what? When I get more information and I see it with my own eyes, I am open to changing my mind. And I think most, you know, reasonable people are. I thought Haskins was a baller last year.

I was encouraged. I wanted to see more. I didn't see that same baller. And maybe it's not his fault. And I also believe that where there's smoke, there's fire. And if he's not a worker and he's a slacker, okay, I don't want him. I want to win. As far as Rivera goes, I did like the hire.

Now I've seen six games. I'm giving him a pass. I'm absolutely giving him a pass. I'm not bailing on him. But I'd be totally, totally dishonest if I didn't say to you after six games, there's a lot that just is a bit concerning. And I think one of the things is he can't wrap his arms around what he needs to do right now. And then the in-game stuff is going to, if he's the coach here for the next five or six years,

and I hope he is because it would mean that they were successful, there are going to be so many days, Cooley, on Mondays, that we are pulling our hair out about in-game decisions he made. No doubt. That is a weakness for him. Not on board right now. You're not on board at all, are you? I am off board.

I am off the riverboat casino. I'm going to go find a land casino. There are plenty of them now. You're getting seasick. Take it to River 10, Wyoming and go to that casino. Charlestown, Atlantic City, Vegas. I'm off the Mississippi, man. Look, there's so many decisions that have been questionable.

there's so many things that have gone on with discussions of players and how people are handling certain things. And it's now the culture change. And I'll tell you this, while I'm not on board, you're going to give Ron six games next year before you make the true decision. Because if he really is banging the culture change drum and he really is changing something, at least with those players, coaches within the building, then it will show itself into his second season. Hold on for a second. I want to make sure I just heard you clearly. Are you saying you're just going to give him

through six games of year two? That's it? How many games did he give the quarterback? They've seen enough in the building. You think Dan would, let's just say they go two and 14. No, I'm not suggesting that Dan's going to fire him six games into next year. I'm telling you I'll be committed to my decision, which I have a hard lean on right now. Halfway, let's call it halfway into next season.

Okay. I hear what you're saying there. Okay. I'm open to changing my mind until about eight or nine games into next year. I said six. Let's call it eight or nine. It could be six next year. Okay.

You get a good sense through the rest of this year, through the offseason. and if things changed in that building with Rivera in the big man seat for a full year, right now it's sketchy. It is, it's concerning. It is concerning. And, you know, part of the concern, I'll be honest with you, is just like it always is here. You know, you had somebody make the choice. that I don't think is capable of making more good choices than bad choices when it comes to his

organization. And he's the one that sat with him and he's the one that talked to people. You know, look, I'm going to hang my hat on this, on the hanging in there on Ron. A, he's fighting cancer right now and he's not himself. B, the reaction from his players when he left Carolina last year and then when he got hired by Washington, I really was influenced by that. I was already predisposed to thinking of him as a pretty good coach and that somebody that we wouldn't have had a shot at, that he would have taken a better gig and a better organization like the Giants,

let's just say, or the Cowboys or whatever. But the players that played for him, there wasn't one dissenting voice. And they came out of everywhere. to tell everybody in Washington that they had a decent man and a damn good football coach. And it matched up with what I always felt from afar, and you pointed this out to me last week. You did. You said, well, how much did you really know?

You didn't watch every single Carolina game. And that's true. I wasn't being condescending when I said that to you. No, I know you weren't. I think it was a fair point. I think that, you know, sometimes you have an impression of somebody from afar, and that was my impression. from afar. I didn't watch every Carolina game. I didn't, you know, follow every single press conference and listen to him and listen to, you know, but I had this sense of watching

the Panthers over the years that they were always a tough team. And you know what? There's a toughness actually to this defense. One of the things when I get to my game take, you know what I loved about yesterday? They were hitting. Man, they were physical defensively. I'm not saying it was a great defensive day, but they were physical, and I think you will have that in the Rivera era here defensively. But anyway, on the two-pointer, just do me a favor, coach. Stop telling me, stop talking in platitudes, stop giving me philosophies that don't make sense. And please, don't have a hard and fast rule of going for the win on the road and playing for the overtime at home. First of all, there is no home or road right now. Somebody should clue him.

on that. It must sound different when he's down there on the sideline with no opposing crowd when you're up there on third and seven. And secondly, context should mean a lot. If you're going to live solely on analytics, which he's not.

If you're going to live solely on analytics, I think that's a big mistake. I think that's a tool that should be used. That's his analytic. His analytic. Right. I know.

Hey, one other quick thing, because we're talking about some of the things he said. So after the game yesterday, one of the comments that he made was a response to somebody who asked them, well, is Kyle Allen going to start next week? And I don't know if you, well, you didn't see anything. And he said, yeah, quote, yeah, I would like to believe so. His statistics are pretty darn good. he was 31 of 42 for 280 yards. Unfortunately, he did have the interception and the fumble,

but we totaled 337 total yards. That gives us an opportunity if we're scoring points to be competitive in a game. And I think we got what we wanted out of it in terms of being competitive. Look, to be honest with you, let's cut to the chase here. That was the most competent offensively

they've looked all year long. I don't even know if it's close, but you should not after a loss, Ron, read the quarterback stats. You should not do that. You should just say, quote, the offense was better but not good enough. He will be our starter next week. Next question. Okay?

That's what should be said. You don't start reading off the quarterback stats after a loss. And you don't do it because, in part, the last time Dwayne started, it was his best statistical day. and he was in the locker room apparently bragging about his fantasy stats. And here you are bragging about, to a certain degree, you're losing quarterback stats. I think that was a bad move. And even without the Dwayne context, I wouldn't have said it. The other thing, too, he's got to stop on.

He's got to stop talking about being in the hunt for the division. He's got to stop talking about the schedule and looking at it, you know, implying that it's easier. because his team, his team is the easy game on everybody's schedule. I think he's very delusional, and I don't think he understands that everyone else is looking at him and his group and saying, it gets a lot easier today. We've got Washington. And that's what the Giants basically were saying. All right, they didn't say it publicly.

All right, we're 0 and 5. We can get a win today. He's got to stop talking about the schedule and start talking about, Hey, you know what we got to do? Focus on trying to play well and win a game this Sunday against Dallas. What about the four-game snapshot? I don't even know who we play after Dallas. I don't even know.

Right now, our whole focus is on getting better as a football team and getting ready for Dallas. Anyway, Cooley will do his uh-uhs and ums, and I will do my game take right after this word from one of our sponsors. All right, let's let you start coolly with your uhs and your hmms. I think there were some hmms, really some ms today. It's um, m. M. M. How would you, I have it spelled E H M.

Ah. Is that? M. M. M. How is it spelled? E H M. How would you, mm. Oh, U M sound. U.M. Okay. And then what about the UGH? Yeah.

Okay. It could be EH. Let's start with the UMH. Okay, let's start with two of these right now. In about two minutes of research, I've found out that in 2018, they failed on a two-point conversion at Detroit, going for the win or the lead. They also failed on a two-point conversion in 2016 to lose 17-16 at Tampa Bay. So he does on the road go for two in that situation.

The two one point losses they've had in the last four years or Carolina did. He went for two and they lost both of those games. Did not convert either of those. So now since 2016 in one point games, going for two, he is over three. Analytically, not good. His math isn't very good in going for two or going for the win. Oh, geez, God. help.

So some things I didn't like about the game. The sack fumbled touchdown. Yeah. It's 1313. Really, I thought they played well to get back to 1313. That's when you'd love to just be able to punt. Yeah. The second and long consistent run play

follow-up for Washington's offense. Yeah. Was unbelievable. Second 24, what do you want to do, coach? Run it. Is you sure about that? Yes. Sure run it.

They're not going to expect it here. Constantly. They had to run on second 15. They had three or four runs on second seven, second eight, second nine. Got to create third makeable. Now, I'm going to get into the fact that they actually did get a lot of first downs and they did convert. Oh, yeah, they did.

But consistently, you're not going to do this on third and eight. They could not get anything going on first down against that giant defense. And as a part of the is I'm watching the game, and I'm excited to watch this on film, I felt like the formations and the run-pass keys on early down and distances were blatant and obvious. The motions are worthless. Their movements pre-snap generate no interest from the defense. I'm not sure what they're creating. And to me, it's just telegraphing run past.

I did not like what they did in first downs. And I certainly didn't like the fact that they consistently ran it in second downs. We'll get to third down, which is a different story. So maybe I should shut my mouth on that. I think Landon Collins has got to be held accountable at some point for playing poor football so far in this season. I thought he was poor yesterday. multiple times had opportunities to make tackles, to make plays, did not make them. I'm not sure what we're getting out of Landon right now.

I think that's a big question mark. Maybe you move him to middle linebacker, which was your suggestion on Friday. Maybe you trade him. Okay. Which we can get into later in the show. It's expensive to trade him, but they have the room. It's expensive to trade him, but there's room. and it's expensive to get a second round pick,

which you could probably get out of landing college. You think so? I think you could. I think there's still value, quite a bit of value in Landon. Right. Everyone's excited about Sadiq Charles. Sadiq Charles comes out and he looks good.

Looks really good. We're warming up. Big dude, solid. Second play, out for the game. Here comes West Schweitzer. I mean, I mean, that just sucks for him. Yeah.

Two plays. Mm-hmm. Ugh. Hopkins really can't hit a 50-yard field goal, can he? Well, he's got the leg. He just doesn't seem to be able to fit it between those two things that go up in the air, the uprights. Yeah. It's crazy.

It's like my golf game. That's a good drive. And I'm going to be able to play that out of the rough rather be in the fair way. No, look. He just doesn't get another chip shot at the green. You can't get up and down. The kicks are majestic. And if I'm hitting the ball off the tee, just off the mark like that,

I'm really happy because I'm smacking it. And it's not in the fair way, but like you said, you know, it's sitting up in the rough. And, you know, I might have 175 instead of 150 because I didn't get any roll out of it. But I'll take my, you know, I'll take my six iron or five iron or my hybrid. I'll punch it on up there somewhere close, try to make four. Sure. Yeah, let's get up and down, baby. Here we go.

He did make a 35-yarder. It was right in his range. You know, that was good later on the game. He's really hurt them. This has been an underrated story for me over the years. I know I've mentioned 2016 many times. They didn't make the playoffs in 2016. And of course, it came down to Kirk, throwing the pick to Rogers Cromartie, right?

he had the pick, I think, at the NDRC. But Hopkins missed the short chip shot in London that would have won a game. He missed kick in Detroit. He missed two in Dallas. Like, there were just so many missed kicks that were so impactful to games in which they could have won and would have made that game meaningless at the end of the year, because that was better than an 8-7-1 team. It was a bad defensive team.

But that team could have won nine or 10 games with decent specialty. teams. Anyway, continue. Anyway. This team can't keep giving up explosive plays. They gave a stat that they'd given up eight plays over 40 yards before the Daniel Jones

promptly before the Daniel Jones 49-yard run. Immediately the play before, how they pulled that off, I don't know. It was amazing. And then they give up the zone read to Daniels, Jones, which fooled the TV and Landon Collins. But gosh, this is too good of a defense to be given up nine plays of over 40 yards.

Right. You know, you take away the big plays and we're great on defense. No shit. They count, though. I know. You know what I mean? Yep, no, you're right. Yeah, take away, I don't know, 500 yards of big play offense.

And it's a really good defense. Let's just say we limit them instead of 500 to 40. We're top five. You are. In fact, yes, you're right, but you didn't. So you're pretty average still. It's an average defense. Good talent.

Average defense. Too many big plays. Third downs. Giants, they couldn't get the Giants off the field. It's amazing to me that the Giants had less. than 50 plays in this ballgame. There's 64% on third downs. I know.

Seven for 11. Yeah. Yep. And it really just felt like they couldn't get off the field. I finally wrote down in my notes. Like, I can't get off the field. And then Kendall Fuller picks off the next play to end of 14-play drive, which was awesome. We'll get to that.

A couple minor things. I wrote this down. Slayton gets hurt late in the game. I'm going to point this out because of it. It's one of my top three pet peeves in football. And then hobbles his way all the way to two yards from the sideline. And they're like, go down right here. And then we waste three minutes of everyone's time so we can sit there,

two yards from the sideline. I hate that. Yeah, well, I hate that. They're trying to give their defense some rest because the Washington offense was on the field the whole game. The whole game. The last, it really was the Allen interception early was a bad pick to Bradbury. Yeah.

You probably have some more. I have some positives from this game, though. One, this was amazing to me. One of my keys to this game was that they do a great job managing the end of half end of game and they can win the game. Well, they could have. they actually did a great job bandaging the end of the half. There's a running into the punter, which gets them to a fourth and four,

and I loved that. I loved going for it there at midfield. I liked it too. I thought that was awesome. You go for it right there at midfield. You then move the ball down the field. You call timeouts in the right situations. It's like, oh my gosh, we got things going.

I loved the throw to, Logan Thomas. Right. We go into halftime 13 to 10. And I'm like, you managed the end of half, end of game situations. It's great. Timeouts were called appropriately. They went for a fourth down where they needed to go to fourth down when they had a slight momentum change.

I thought that was big time. Converted a third down on a screen to Terry, called timeout. I mean, that was great. You took a lot of momentum into halftime. I actually, because I don't want to lose this thought, I actually, one of the few answers that I liked from him in his press conference when he was asked about, you know, taking the penalty and taking the ball back instead of the Giants having it at their own one yard line, he said, you know, I just felt like we had moved the ball too well and we were sitting there with three points. And he's right. They had moved the ball well, and they only had three points to show for it. And now you had a chance, fourth and four, you know, it wasn't turning it into fourth and six. You know, it was fourth and less than four. You know, it was fourth and less than four. You know, it was fourth and less than four. You know, it was fourth and less than four. You know, at the giant 40-yard line. If they were fourth and four before the punt, they would have gone for it.

So I thought that that made sense. You know, he could have also considered putting Hopkins out there at the 40-yard line to kick a 57-yard or he's got the leg, but I liked the move. I liked it too. I thought it was smart. Now, the downside you consider the risk to that is if you don't get it, you're going to be down 16 to 3, maybe worse at halftime. Yeah, there's certainly a downside to it, but I liked going for it in that situation.

I did too. Riverboat. He got one right. Yeah. And you're right, he did. I should have mentioned that this morning. They managed the clock at the end of the first half well, and they managed the clock on the final drive of the game well. Yeah, they did.

They just made one poor decision at the end of the game. Yeah. Well, it was. Which did not grant them the lead. Not the win, the lead. Yeah, that's important for people to understand. He went for the win. Damn it, he went for the win.

You got to make a firm decision and go for the win. Well, no, he was going for the lead with 36 seconds left. Would have provided them with the lead. It would have... The lead. Yeah. But anyway, that's not why I had the problem with it. I had the problem with it, as you did,

because the context was they were actually at that point sort of dominating the game and would have had the advantage in overtime. I feel they would have. But anyway, continue. What else did you like? I liked a lot of the first half for Washington. They ended up with 174 yards to the Giants of 141. They didn't get a stop in the first half against the Giants.

Giants scored on three possessions in the first half. But they managed the clock. They managed the ball. I thought it was true. I mean, end of the game, it was 24 first downs to 16. They did a good job possessing the ball and moving the sticks. A lot of it wasn't pretty, but they moved the sticks. I like that with this offense.

I like the two fourth down conversions that they got in this game. Kev, I love the Fuller interception. We totally redeemed himself after the pass interference to give him a real chance to win that ballgame. That was such a key moment in this game. It should have been overturned by replay. It absolutely was not an interception. His elbow clearly hits first. I can't believe they didn't overturn that.

That's crazy. No, it's absolutely crazy. But they didn't. So they didn't. But yeah, I really, I liked the offense in the first half. They kept the defense off the field. They kept the defense fresh. And while the defense gave up 13 points,

it's not the end of the world in that situation. Three drives for scores, but two of them, they end up holding them to fill goals. the players I loved in this game I thought I love the switch to put DeShazer Everton he had the hit on Daniel Jones that was late that was a personal foul but then promptly the next play he had the hit on who was it ward or board and I didn't like that he knocked him out of the game but that was a big hit in a pass breakup and it was a clean hit yeah and DeShazer made plays throughout the game. Damn right.

It was the first time that the free safety came down and hit the quarterback and didn't miss. Yeah. To me, watching it on TV, I mean, you have to see more, but watching the television,

he's pretty consistent and physical as a tackler. Damn right. I love the switch to play Cole Hocom. I told you Cole Hocom was going to play. I'm surprised they played Bostick. But I liked Cole Hocom in this ballgame. Duran Payne was incredible. Unbelievable.

It's going to go. understated, but I thought Duran Payne was a game changer for them. Awesome. I thought sweat was good. I thought Chase Young was good. Brian Kerrigan had what maybe the only sack in this game. Do you know how many snaps he played in the game? Like eight?

Seven. Yeah. I thought McKissick was awesome. Yeah, me too. I mean, McKissick continues to impress me. He had six receptions for 43 yards, eight carries for 41 yards. I thought McKissick was a big impact in this game. And then honestly, I thought Kyle Allen was good.

I didn't think he was great. I'm not in love with his performance. He turned the ball over twice and they were not good situations. But honestly, he made plays, Kevin. He made throws down the field when he had to make throws down the field. He made plays in this game to give this offense a chance to continue to move the ball. I mean, and there were some little things that you see. Like there's a touch pass that he threw over Logan Ryan to hit Gibson,

and he's kind of smiling after it. And you're like, that's a guy that can make plays. He knows how to make something happen. You know, that kind of lob pass? Yeah, it was what we would call a good touch pass. The other guy didn't do that very well. The past the Logan Thomas in the end zone was terrific. The pass to Cam Sims was a huge touchdown throw on the out and up.

no there's a third and five that he hits terry mcclorn on a dig route big time play at the end of the game a third and six to inman big play a scramble on a third and six but like i thought he was good and i thought he got better throughout the game and it looked like he was really having fun playing football getting things done again two bad plays two really bad plays and it wasn't that he was amazing in this game but you take away those just those two plays and he's probably a 120 rating just like our defense. Take away the bad ones. Mooligan.

But I thought Kyle Allen was pretty good. I thought this was a game that they absolutely should have won. I thought they were the better football team by a nose. It's a game to me. They should have went to overtime and played. All right. I'll give you my game take. There will be some repeats,

but with emphasis, I promise, right after this word from one of our sponsors. Pay attention. Here's Kevin's Game Take. All right. I will start. with some of the things that I liked, get to some of the things I didn't like.

And I think I want to get into Kyle Allen's performance in a little bit more detail with you as a follow up and the overall quarterback situation of what should happen moving forward. I'm going to start with this. I just thought they really came out, and I think Everett was a big part of this. I think KPL was a big part of this. I think they were really physical yesterday. I like that. I love teams that really, really hit.

And Carolina's teams always hit. And I thought that they really made the Giants pay even after some plays in which they got gashed a little bit because the defense did not have a great day. In fact, I think the team's best defense was its offense, which dominated time of possession, dominated overall play count, and kept the giant offense off the field.

But when they were on the field, they were physical, and I like that. Number two, their red zone defense was phenomenal. You know, the Giants were 0 for 3 in the red zone, and it was all defensive plays, basically, that got them, you know, either into field goals or ultimately the interception that shouldn't have been an interception. But if you go back to the first trip into the red zone, they ran that Angram reverse, but they wrinkled it with the double reverse to Slate and Cooley. And Cole Holcomb plays it perfectly. Perfectly. You know, he's disciplined.

He makes the stop minus yardage. second trip into the red zone. John Allen and Dron Payne on back-to-back plays just completely engulfed Freeman for minus five yards on two plays. They end up kicking a field goal there. They got the They almost got a third down Daniel Jones quarterback draw. Cubey draw, but it was, you know, it was a yard and a half, two yards short. It wasn't like he really got close enough for them legitimately think about going for it. Maybe they did. But they got to stop there. And then obviously the Fuller interception, which again, I don't know how the elbow hits out on white instead of inbound green, but still it was a play in which Chase Young's pressure, you know, forced the bad throw that Fuller picked off.

So the defense, you know, the defense gave up big plays, but they really did a good job in the red zone. And they weren't on the field much, as we know. I mean, there were a total of like 46 or 47, 48 giant snaps in the entire game. So that's a nice spot to be in. Specifically, Duran Payne was just awesome yesterday. And I thought sweat was too. And I think Fuller is really a good player too. By the way, did you notice this?

I said this on the radio this morning. I may be wrong. I thought I saw Fuller playing safety at times. And it's very interesting. You know who didn't get any snaps in the game or got two snaps? Cameron Curl got two snaps in the game. That was it. Moreau played yesterday.

13 snaps. And you'll go back before the defensive film, but I think Fuller was a safety on some plays. Again, I might be wrong. It just looked like it. Anyway, moving on. Payne, he's just the most talented interior defensive linemen this franchise has had in forever.

I don't even remember. Like, he's got the biggest upside of any, of their interior defensive linemen, in my opinion. You and I have had this conversation before. I think you believe that in terms of upside, you agree with that. He's producing this year. He not only is so, like, stout at the point of attack, whether he's got one person or two people on him.

He throws people off him, and then he devours runners. Like, they disappear when he tackles them. He blocked a pass yesterday. He's done that a couple times this year. Sweats motor. which is the number one reason when we were talking about the draft in 2019 that I really wanted Montez sweat, you know, as long as his heart was okay and everything else. I just, you see the energy now and the motor in the speed he has for a big guy. He chases people down from any part

of the field and his, the last giant's possession of the game before the kneel downs at the end basically came with, like, there were seven and a half minutes left in the quarter. That was the last time they were on the field offensively, except for the kneel down. And on the third and six, sweat is just chasing Daniel Jones to the sideline, forces him to throw it away. I just think both of those players sweat and pain. I said this morning, you know, if you're trying to be glass-half-full about the football team, not the organization, they have 4A players.

and there was a time where they only had one. Pain, young, sweat, and I think McLaurin are all A-Clayers, and they're all young. That's something just to be half optimistic about, somewhat optimistic about. And, you know, I think John Allen and Matt Ionitis are good players. and anyway, they were on my things that I liked list. The next thing I'm going to get to is that we just need to sort of cut to the chase here. That offense was better than it's been, and it's really not close.

Like it was significantly better. Now, the opponent may have had something to do with it. The giant stink, I get it. And I concede the point that this is more of a comparison to what they've been recently than it being great. because it wasn't a great offense. It wasn't dynamic. Like you said, the first down stuff, the second down predictability. It wasn't a threatening offense.

But it was competent, man. It was, it drove the ball. It's because Kyle Allen made throws on third down. It's damn right. They moved the change. That's what it was. That was exactly what it was. There was very little difference in first and second down from that offense that I've seen through five, six weeks.

But Kyle Allen made throws in third down situations. The offense was really good on third downs. They were dead last in the league coming in on third down. They averaged the fewest yards per game, the fewest yards per drive per game in the league. The offense was last or near dead last in every offensive category coming into this game. And it was coming off the most miserable offensive day in recent NFL history last week against the Rams. Well, yesterday it had its best day of the year. on third down they were eight for 15.

On fourth down, they were two for two. All right, so that means they weren't going three and out, and they weren't punting a lot. They were continuing drives. They were gaining yards. They were increasing their chances of scoring. They converted basically when you count third and fourth down, 10 to 17. That's not just an improvement. That's a very good number in the NFL.

They had one three and out, the fewest of the year. They had one punt. Now, one of them, they took back off of the penalty, but they had one punt. They punted 10 times last week. They had two of their missed third downs, Cooley, were third downs, the third and 24, where they gained 15, 18, 20 yards, and improved field goal position. That was the field goal he made. They also, on the field goal that he missed, you know, took a play that improved field goal

position slightly. they have not had a chance to win a game since the Philly game. And yesterday, they were in that game from the jump the whole way. And the reason... They were heading to Cleveland late. Yeah, 2017 going into the fourth quarter against Cleveland. That's true. In part, the reason that they had a chance is the offense kept the ball.

The team had... This was weird because I look at drives all the time. They had eight drives in the game. All right? Eight drives because every time they had it, they kept the ball for 10. plus plays. They scored on half of them. They should have scored on five of the eight. You know, 50% of your drives producing points is a really good number because typically you average 11 drives per game. So if you can score in five and a half of them, five and a half

scores is going to get you into the 20s more likely than not. They scored on four of them, should have been five. The field goal kicker missed. Five of their eight drives were 10 plus play drives. That's impressive. They had 70 plus office. offensive snaps in just eight drives. They ran 23 more offensive plays than the Giants did. Again, I'm not calling them like dynamic or comparing them to the chiefs or the Packers or the Seahawks. It was a professional offense yesterday, with one exception. The mistakes made by the quarterback. I'm not overlooking those and I'm going to get to the list of things I didn't like. The interception and the fumble were devastating. They resulted in 14 points.

for the Giants. They cost the team a legitimate chance to win the game and maybe win the game comfortably. But one of the biggest reasons the game was winnable in the first place was the total improvement and competence of the offense. I highlighted J.D. McKissick as well, Cooley. I think he's a weapon for them. I think he's really good at yards after catch and really good yards after contact. And he's elusive. You know, I'd like to to see him get even more touches during the game. On my list of things that I liked, I'll just repeat the fact that I really applauded Rivera's decision

to take that running into the punter penalty and go for the fourth down. And the challenge on Kyle Allen's run on that first down was a good challenge. You know what? I think Gold Riverboat run, I don't know that he's lost a challenge this year, has he? Maybe he has.

I think he's hit on more of them than he hasn't. I don't know, but that was a great challenge. That was a bad spot of the ball. That was a heck of a play by Kyle Allen. Really? Just you could see that he could see the sticks, that he was looking for, he knew where he was. Right.

So let me get to the list of things that I didn't like. Third down defense, they gave up seven of 11. They got gashed more in this game without justification for getting gashed. You could look at the gashings in recent games and say, well, the offense just immediately was punting the ball, as we joked on Friday, it's like, oh, the offense just came off the football field. The defense just came off the football field. All right, guys, do I have time for water?

Nope, they're punning. They're already punning again. Get back out there. And this week, the defense couldn't have been fresher. They were barely out there during the course of the game. And I thought they were stout against the run with the exception of the zone readkeeper by Jones in the first half. But I thought Freeman really made some people miss.

and got some big plays in the second half. But again, the red zone defense was really good. I didn't obviously like the turnovers in missed field goal. Those are, you know, those are massive plays. Like you can't turn the ball over deep in your own territory. That was a bad throw. I think he thought it was man and it was zone. The fumble, you got, you know, I made this comment to a friend of mine last night

who called me. It said, it was just a terrible play. And I said, it was a terrible play. It didn't protect the ball. That's a bad play. but he was trying to make a play. Like, I don't like when a guy's clueless gets hit from behind and just as clueless and has no chance of making a play.

He turned it over in the name of trying to make a play on third down when really what he needed to be aware of, and hopefully he'll improve on this, is protect the ball, you're at midfield, you pun it, the odds are still in your favor at that point in a 13-13 game. The miss field goal is terrible. We went through the going for two. I just, I, it's whatever.

It is what it is. It was not the right context probability move. I'm not going to buy into, I don't care who comes out with a story in the post tomorrow about the analytics of that play. They were on the field for 31 of the last, of the previous 37 snaps in the game. They were the team that was playing better, had the momentum and had the advantage, had the game gone to overtime. On Kyle Allen.

So you have to start with the turnovers because he's been a turnover machine in his 14 starts as a pro. The interception was bad, the fumble was worse. With that said, like, did anybody, if you're being objective and you watch that game, and you didn't come away saying that's the best quarterbacked game of the year of the six played for our team. You're not being honest because it was. And I'm the one that was here saying, and I still would like to see Dwayne more this year. I don't think we're going to. I don't think there's, that's my phone.

I don't think there's any chance we're going to see Dwayne. I think that ship is sailed. But that was the most competent quarterbacked game. game of the year. Understood. Turnovers. They were disasters. But it's obvious, he ran whatever offense they run better than what we've seen. He made plays. Cooley, he made plays after his bad plays. I think that may have been one of the more impressive things for me. After that first pick, he went 13 to 15 for 1334 yards in a touchdown before halftime to get the team to within three at the break. After the fumble, he leads a 10-10.

play 75-yard drive, converts on two-third-down throws, and then throws the touchdown pass to Cam Sims. One of the things when we talked about him about last year, I said to you, he's got some gamer in him. He's going to try to make some plays. I talked about that Green Bay game in the snow. If you watched him last year, you saw a lot of mistakes and you saw a lot of plays. You know, overall, his stats, forget about the stats and look at the big plays. He was eight for 14 with his arm and legs on third down. Eight for 14. Two of those third downs were third and longs where his completions basically improved field goal range. So really, on 14 of the third down plays, he made good

plays on 10 of them. You know what we haven't seen from the quarterback on third down this year? 10 out of 14 good plays. That's production on third down. When you make third downs, you keep the ball, you improve field position, you increase your chance of scoring points. The 19 points yesterday aren't enough. They're not nearly enough, but the game was a short game, only an eight-drive game offensively. I thought Kyle Allen was better at quarterback yesterday than Dwayne was at any point in his four starts this year, and certainly better than Alex was last week in relief. He's mobile, he extends plays, he gives them a chance to be what they were yesterday, not great, but professionally competent. He's off-skirts. He's off-skinned. He's

schedule very good, but he'll turn it over and he'll make a couple of bad throws. He had a terrible throw in a third down there. They're one three and out to McLaurin who came open. By the way, I'd like your thoughts on his arm strength because I think it's good enough, but it's not great. But overall, he's going to give you a chance in probably more games than you think right now. Cooley will give his grade tomorrow. I'd give him a C. The two turnovers are too important for him to be anything better than that. But at the same time, if you watch this game and a friend of yours didn't and you say to your friend, he sucked because of the two mistakes, that's misleading, because he didn't suck. He didn't suck at all yesterday. And if I can't see Dwayne in another game

this year, I would just prefer to see Kyle Allen start these final 10 games and see what he can become. Maybe they can coach him out of the turnovers. Maybe he'll mature a little bit. He's not. He's not, in my opinion, the franchise quarterback. I think the franchise quarterback isn't on the roster. I think the franchise quarterback of the future is playing in college right now, because I think Washington's going to have a top five pick, if not a top three pick. But the dude, the dude gave you a chance against a bad team, but that offense was by far and away the most professional looking it's been all year. To me, it's not even close. They didn't. do anything particularly well besides move the sticks on third down.

But that's what a professional offense has to do. And that's what a professional quarterback has to do. And you can't get better on offense if you run 42 plays every single week. And you have six three outs every game. You look like the New York Jets did in their ballgame where they scored no points. That's garbage. So, yeah, they did look like a professional offense. So they also protected the quarterback much better this week than they did the week before.

then you're just much more consistent. And it's not a bad Giants front. I mean, it's a good Giants front in terms of stopping the run. It's not a bad Giants front in terms of pass rush. Their best pass rusher was out for the game. Yeah, their best pass rusher. And, you know, Martinez got hurt, but he ended up playing. He came back and played most of the game, I'm pretty sure.

Yeah, I look, I don't know what you think, but I think yesterday convinced me, this assumes that Dwayne Haskins is not an option, that they are moving on from him, that they don't think the juice is worth the squeeze because of whatever he is, you know, in terms of a preparation guy, a work ethic guy, the whole thing, and they are moving on from him. If that's the case, then Kyle Allen in these games, the rest of the way, is going to give you a chance to win some of them, and then he's personally going to be responsible for at least a few of the losses the rest of the way. You're going to have a chance to compete on offense is what it seems to look like, Kev, which is all you're asking for. You got a chance to compete. You got a chance to make some plays.

It might not be as many as you would love, but there's a chance. So you're saying there's a chance. But I think that's how you feel with Alan right now. It wasn't against with Duane. No. Sorry, it just wasn't there so far this year. It wasn't like it was last year. But I still, if you told me right now, they haven't given up on him.

And, you know, it was just sort of a warning or a way to motivate him and they plan on playing him and they still have belief in him, which I don't believe is the case. But if you told me that that was true, then I would want to see Dwayne again. I would. because Kyle Allen's not going to be your franchise quarterback if your goal is to compete for championships. It's not what I see in him. I see a guy that, you know, if you're in the back half of the league and you're really hard up can start for you. But more likely is a really solid backup. Now, he's not under contract next year.

They gave up a fifth rounder. He's not under contract next year. I don't know if he'd stay or not. But if Dwayne's not an option, let's see him play these final 10. By the way, I'm going to be the first to say it. I said it on my radio show. Part of it is the point spread, as it usually is. Part of it is that they're playing on Monday night.

I actually think they've got a really good chance to beat the Cowboys on Sunday. Cowboys will come in here short week, the whole thing, and it's not going to be a Cowboys crowd like it's been at FedEx Field the last few years. So I think they've got to, I think they'll have a chance to win the game on Sunday. But it's a four-win team. I mean, I think what we saw yesterday is we saw a team that's a four-win team this year. It's a team that's going to be in the Trevor Lawrence discussion, probably won't end up being as bad as the Jets.

You know, may not be as bad as Jacksonville record-wise. But the Giants, you know, maybe not as bad as the Giants. who knows, knows, but they're going to be in that top three to top five range when all a sudden done. That's my prediction today, even though I think they can win next week. They'll be lucky to get to five wins. We might make them a four-win team. They might be a three-win team.

You have to keep in mind, they still have to keep health to be a four- or five-win team. Right. You can't have a COVID week and you can't have, I mean, but you could also, you're going to play other teams that have all the same problems. That's right. I take all of that out of the equation in evaluating the team. That assumes that you're not ravaged by injuries in COVID-19 and or playing teams that are ravaged by COVID-19 or injuries. One last thing on the game yesterday. We talked about him last week. To me, Daniel Jones has a future in this league. I think he's got a chance to be a good quarterback. I like him. It was really interesting. I think it was some point in the third quarter.

The Giants were pretty efficient on offense, and Daniel Jones was 10 to 12 for 100 yards. Right. I mean, they stuck with the run game, which was interesting because I would have thrown the ball all day against this defense. I would have attacked the middle of the field and the linebackers in the middle of the defense.

I just don't quite understand. the game plan going into the game, but they won, so I don't know what to tell you. I think that they were probably concerned that there would be complete pressure. But when you watch Daniel Jones play, there's definitely something there to him, but there's also a toughness to him. Yeah. Yeah. And he's going to gain a lot of respect.

You know, there's a play where he lowers his shoulder into the Shazer Everett, and it's a physical hit that Everett puts on him. Right. But still, it didn't knock him backwards. He fell forward on that play. He lowered his shoulder, fell forward on the play. He's a big, strong dude. He takes hits in the pocket on a lot of throws.

We didn't get great per- Washington didn't get great pressure throughout on this game, but there was also not a ton of drop-back situations. Right. They needed better pressure on third-down situations, what they didn't get. They didn't. I like, I think Daniel Jones got something to him. I'm still, I'm still, I'm, not dead set on the fact that he's going to be a top eight quarterback, but it looks like he could be one

of those guys that gets between eight and 14. Yeah, there's something to him. I agree with that. Let's go around the league. All right, let's go around the NFL and talk about some of the games yesterday. I want to start with the Tampa Bay Green Bay game, Cooley, because I did watch this game. Tampa's defense is nasty. And I said that after the opener when they gave up a bunch of points to the Saints. Part of it was there was a pick six in that game and they lost that game. And I know they've given up a lot of points. Like the Charger scored 31.

They have so much speed defensively. And I think Todd Bowles is one of the best. But Devin White is a badass. Levante David, their linebackers are so good. They beat the living snot out of Aaron Rogers yesterday. It was amazing. They hit... But Dave David was in the backfield on 14 plays.

They sacked him four times and hit him 13 times in the game. He threw a pick six and a near second pick six. I'm telling you right now, if Tampa's, you know, take all the disclaimers of COVID and the whole thing, Tampa's going to be in the NFC championship game this year. their their defense in the NFC is the one that if I were Seattle, if I were Green Bay. I mean, Chicago's defense is really good, too. Tampa's the team, though, to me, and by the way, Grunk started to play yesterday. Yeah, he did.

I think Tampa, it's really interesting about that game. Did you, I'm assuming you didn't watch it because you're probably watching. Yeah, I did watch a lot of this game. Yeah, I did watch this game. drunk with good. They got Godwin back. I mean, they're scary. They're scary.

The Picks. Donald Jones is awesome. You loved him. That is a good call on him. You loved him coming out of Southern Cal. I was not nearly the fan you were. He looks great. They, it was one of those games.

Like, all right, here comes. You know, I had Tampa in the Smeltest. Smeltest, I think, is 7 and 7 going into the game tonight. I've got Buffalo. But I, the Green Bay scores, first two drives, field goal touchdown,

and then the pick six, basically it was an avalanche after that. They couldn't do any, it was Aaron Rogers. He couldn't do anything. They had five, three and outs the rest of the way. They don't go three and out.

It was really interesting to watch, man. Tampa is dangerous, and they're just going to keep getting better. You know, there's no reason to believe that they won't. Defensively, not only that, Jason Pierre Paul had a big game, and Goldston is good. And Indomacin Sue made a couple plays. The now bounce around who was once the best defensive lineman in the NFL made some plays. That's a...

It's more. Like, Shaq Barrett's a heck of a player. I love Antoine Winfield Jr. Oh, my God, such a good player to a rookie. I think he's absolutely tremendous. His dad was amazing. Yeah. You played against the dad, right?

His dad was one of the best corners in the NFL. Yeah. I like this team. That was an eye-opener for the Packers, man. They were cruising along. Nobody could stop them offensively. You know, the Bucks had some fans there in Tampa. It wasn't an empty stadium.

But in Green Bay's good. I'm not about to say that this isn't going to be, you know, potentially the first of two games between these two teams. this year. I think it very likely will be. But man, Tampa's defense and Todd Bowles and the talent they have, really, really impressive. It's just, it's interesting about

Tampa because last year, you know, I wanted Todd Bowles to be the defensive coordinator here. I think they did too. Yeah. But last year, they gave up a lot of points, you know, and they scored a lot of points, but really the biggest issue with Tampa last year was

all the interceptions that James threw. You know, and and it put the defense into a lot of binds, you know, in a season in which they actually were a dangerous team, you know, last year. Now they've got the stability at quarterback. They're not making as many mistakes. Look, Brady had nothing to do with that win yesterday. Let me be clear about that. I watched that game.

It had nothing to do with Brady. It had nothing to do with Grunk, although Grunk was pretty good. Ronald Jones was huge because they were able to run the ball for like a buck 70 or something like that in the game. It was their defense, man. They completely, completely shut down Aaron Rogers. It's funny, coolly about Aaron Rogers. He's, you know, debatably one of the top five greatest of all time, if you want to make that debate. When they have played dominant defenses over the years, there have been games in which he has looked terrible.

The San Francisco game last year, actually both San Francisco games, the one in the regular season on that Sunday night and the one in the postseason. A really good defense, he couldn't do anything. Now, he brought him back in the, you know, he put up some numbers in the second half of that NFC title game, but they were getting their ass kicked at half time. I think it was 24 to nothing at halftime in that game, and he hadn't done anything. And they played the Chargers last year, and the Chargers were good defensively, and he was pedestrian. It's funny. Wilson, on the other hand, I don't. don't think it always matters if he plays a great defense. Like he's able to figure it out.

There have been a lot, there have been moments over the years where Rogers has been completely shut down. Yesterday was one of those days. Completely and utterly shut down. He was under siege and couldn't do anything about it. Couldn't do anything about it. He played it's 45% of his passes. Is that what it was? My God. And what was he coming in? Green Bay had the prolific Green Bay offense that they've been this year, 13 total first downs. Yeah. And 200 total yards.

And it wasn't just, look, we can do this. We can. We can do it with the quarterback. But my God, when you watch this game, Tampa was fast on defense. So fast. And they confused. They beat Matt LaFlorre to death. I mean, they outschemed.

him completely. Aaron Jones could never get anything going on the ground. I couldn't get any of their run action stuff going. And it just, it was a shutdown. It was a clinic on defense for Tampa. I love watching Todd Bowles coach. I would have taken him as our head coach. I think he'll get another head coaching opportunity. He just didn't have a quarterback in New York. You know, and when he got one, you know, he was gone. But I think Tampa is, a final four team, if not a Super Bowl team. I really do. The next game that I wanted to talk about was another team that defensively is scary right now, and that's Pittsburgh. And Pittsburgh is so dominant defensively as they were last year, but of course they had Mason Rudolph and ducked up

goose playing quarterback, or whatever the guy's name was. Cleveland couldn't run the ball. Now, they didn't have Nick Chubb, he's hurt. They had Kareem Hunt. were horrible at quarterback. I'm not a Baker Mayfield guy. He was bad. He was so bad in this game. And to where it was late in the game and he was just throwing it up. That's one thing you hate to see is your quarterback just start throwing it up.

Just chucking it up. Doesn't want to throw it up or doesn't want to try to make a play. Like he's just like, get it out of my hands. Picks were ugly in this game. Pittsburgh, Tennessee this coming week in the, you know, rescheduled game from the COVID game. That's going to be a hell of a football game. And then they have the Ravens after that.

So we're going to learn a lot about Pittsburgh the next two weeks. But there's something about that toughness on defense that I love. And they have stars on defense. You know, you were, you said about T.J. Watt, definite first rounder before anybody said it, and then said, oh, my God, might be one of the best defensive players in the draft. Star. Bud Dupree, Star. You did not like Devin Bush, Adam Michigan. Who's now out, potentially out for the year. I know. Was it Achilles or ACL? I saw that, but I can't remember. But, you know, he's a good player, Cooley.

They traded for Mika Fitzpatrick. Star. Big time trade. Hayward's awesome. Toot's a really good player for Pittsburgh. I mean, they're stacked on defense. Stacked on defense. And then they took Chase Claypool. the Notre Dame receiver in the second round, who's a big, strong receiver that a lot of people decided that they passed on, and this guy's a stud so far as a rookie. And they've got Ben back. But Ben didn't have to do anything yesterday. It's like, you know, Cleveland had no prayer, no prayer of scoring yesterday. They got seven. I don't know how they did it. But it was a dominant, dominant performance. That leads me to the team that Pittsburgh plays next week. And that is the Tennessee Titans. I think it's time now for all NFL fans to consider Tennessee

to be a legitimate Super Bowl contender this year. I don't know why we haven't done it before. They were in the AFC championship game last year. Maybe it's because they had all these close games. Well, they beat the bills last week, you know, on Tuesday night. They come back and they got the Sunday game. The Texans were a smell test pick plus three and a half. I mean, it's criminal that I lost that game. But they, I mean, there are a couple things about this game. I don't know if you know about. First of all, Derek Henry.

It's unfair that one person be that big and that fast. Come on. Where he runs away from everybody? It's ridiculous. That's crazy. He's 255 pounds. He's six. He looked like he ran a four-three on that play.

He's something else. Tanna Hill is just the perfect team for him. But the Texans have played much better recently, obviously. They won a game last week. They could have won at Pittsburgh a few weeks ago. They've been much better here recently, and they've got Romeo Cornell. But I'm going to ask you about the situation that they went with yesterday. They became, I think, only the second team in what I'll call the analytics age,

but we'll call it the two-point conversion age, to decide after scoring a touchdown late, up by six, up by one, instead of kicking the extra point to get to an eight-point lead, he went for two to win the game. You know this, right? Yeah. No, I know. I'm just sitting here thinking, Minnesota just did that. No, Minnesota had the fourth and inches that didn't kick the field goal to go up eight. Someone just, someone just did this, though. No, you're thinking of the Minnesota- Seattle game from last week when Minnesota

It went for the fourth down and not going up right. So what Romeo Cornell did, up 30 to 29, first of all, on a fourth and goal from the one-yard line with a minute one left in the game, they went for the touchdown. Instead of kicking the field goal, they go up 33-29. They're up 30 to 29, okay? They could have kicked the field goal and fourth and goal from the one with a minute 50 left and gone up 33-29. They went for it, which was fine. You know what? I like that because they weren't able to stop Tennessee. So they needed the lead to be at least a touchdown. They scored on the fourth and goal. And then what Cronnell did in the analytics people will tell you that it gives you a slight advantage.

I mean, like tenths of a percent, is to go for two in that spot. I think it's information. Like I've said, use it as a tool, but use context more importantly. And the truth is that they had been rolling, like Houston had been rolling offensive. Oh, yeah. So they went for two to make it 38 to 29, which would have won the game because Tennessee would have then had to score, kick and on sidekick, recover it to have a chance. So that's really going for the win there. They missed it, so they're up seven. So Tennessee comes down, scores a touchdown, kicks the extra point, game goes to overtime, they get the toss. And they've got a third and goal at the five, and they go Wildcat with Henry. Third and goal from the five.

They're not even thinking about throwing the football. Why would you with him? He's going to get five yards there, and he did touchdown 42-36. They're a good football team. They're a well-coached football team. You love Arthur Smith. I love Rable. I think Rable's been doing a good job there.

They've got talent. Just watch Jeffrey Simmons, who was Montez Sweets teammate at Mississippi State. He's turning into a stud, too. That team's undefeated. That's a great game this coming weekend, Tennessee, Pittsburgh. Great game. I can't wait to watch that game. I'm so impressed with Tennessee,

and the fact that Houston scored 36 is pretty amazing. Deshaun Watson had some big throws in this game. Big throws. Big throws. He had some huge throws in this game. And I don't, I'm just, I just, I sat there because I watched this on game replay in the quick cut-up version. Yeah.

And I just kept pausing it. Like, just go up eight. I know, I know. The chance that they score and get a two-point is so low. But I guess you're sitting there saying to yourself, they score, they'll put Derek Henry and Wildcat, and no one will stop him for the two-point conversion. Right.

And they haven't been stopping us. The context there was maybe it did make sense to go for the win. And worst case, you're still up seven. If you get a stop, you know, you're going to overtime more likely than not. Well, and they were sitting there saying to themselves, you know, there's this Ron Rivera theory of going for two. Like if we don't get it, they'll definitely kick to go to overtime. Yeah.

Anyway. A couple of the other games, the Eagles lost. They made this late rally. They had a two-point conversion to top. Baltimore with about a minute 55 to go. They ran his own read and basically got blown up in the backfield. Cam Newton threw two interceptions and New England is now two and three on the year. The Patriots defense is excellent.

I don't think that- Cam Newton was terrible on this game against the Broncos. You know what, Cooley? So Albert Breer had a story yesterday prior to the games kicking off that Washington's going to be in the market for Cam Newton in the offseason. do you want to be in the market for Cam Newton? No, they could have been in the market for Cam Newton before the off season. If Cam Newton wants to even play here.

What do you think about Cam Newton maybe not wanting to play for Scott Turner? There could be some, what do you think about Cam Newton not wanting to play for Ron Rivera? Well, coach, do I have to wear my tie or not? You're going to wear your tie. But this game, this Patriots game was interesting. It ended 18 to 12. The Broncos kick six field goals. I know.

Yeah. They didn't score a touchdown. Did not score touchdown. And it was 18 to 6, right? I think it was 18 to 13. This game was a blowout. It was 18 to 3 at one point. It was 18 to 3 at one point.

Yeah. Yeah. This game was a blowout. I mean, they dominated. Denver's defense was really good. Cam had two ugly picks in this game. And I think Izzo had a fumble. The tight end had a fumble.

So they had that turnover. Denver wasn't dominant on offense, but Lindsay ran it for over 100 yards. Oh, he did? Yeah. Yeah, Lindsay had 101 yards. Lindsay had a pretty good game running the ball. Lock didn't complete jack crap. But he hit this dude Patrick on a couple big plays that moved the ball down the field.

I'm looking at this. Lock was only, he was 10, 10 of 24. Oh, wow. And he threw two picks. I watched a lot of this day. It didn't seem that bad, but it was just because Denver was in such control defensively. Did you watch? New England's really struggling with offense.

You can just get so funny to see, like, definitively how much better they were with Tom Brady versus Cam Newton. And I know that's crazy to say, but because it's Tom Brady, but Tom Brady's like 44 years old. I mean, the only thing they get with Cam is they get 70 yards rushing out of him. Well, don't forget. get a guy is really inconsistent right now. Well, don't forget, Cam missed a couple games with positive, you know, COVID-19 tests, right? Yesterday was, what, his third game or fourth game? Was yesterday his fourth game or third game?

But I'm just a different. Whatever it was. Did you watch the game last night? Are you going to talk about, are you going to talk? I did watch the game last night. Yes, I'm going to talk about Kirk. I will, okay, but did you watch the game last night? You want to know the biggest thing from the game last night?

You want to know my biggest takeaway from the game last night? You take either coach here right now? Yeah, sure. Anyone would right now. But look at Aaron Donald from last night's game. I know. The guy that completely wrecked our game had two tackles. One tackle for loss.

No sacks. Almost no pressures. You game planned for him. Yeah. God. San Francisco does so much with that run game, don't they? Yeah, they're great with the run game. Garoppolo.

Played well. Ends up with 268 yards. I'll bet 200 of them came yards after the catch on balls thrown within five yards. You consistently look at Kittle and you're like, this dude's just a freak. He's just absolutely amazing. His ability to pick up third downs and his ability to run after the catch is unprecedented. He's so special. He's just so special.

The Rams had opportunities if you watch this game. They had a lot of drop balls. Cooper Cup had two or three drops. Yeah, you're right about that. One on the sideline, yeah. I mean, it wasn't, it could have been better for the Rams. They weren't as bad as it looked. And I think they scored late to make it 2416.

But they had more opportunities on offense. They weren't so bad. It was just some drops and stuff. But, yeah, it was a good game plan by San Francisco in offense. There was one other game before I just... Oh, there's a game I want to talk about. Oh, the Bears Panthers game. I think two good teams.

But the Bears, I mean, they're five and one, and they're really good on defense. Bottom line, they are good on defense. They had three turnovers forced in that game. I think they've got one of the best turnover margins. I think that's true. I'll look that up real quickly because I remember that from last week. They're good on defense. I mean, you might have to start worrying about the old Chicago Bears, the Bears.

The old 85, the Bears defense. No, they are good on defense. Caroline's a good team, but they just don't have the weapons to beat Chicago defensively. There's some other games. There was one note. I was just watching a bunch of the cutups from a lot of the games. The jets are absolutely awful on offense. They had like 100, 3 and outs.

But I'm watching this game in the fourth quarter. You know Joe Flacco took a 28-yard sack? Why were you watching that game? I was watching that game because Greg Williams made some comments over the weekend or on Friday and basically said, yeah, our defense should be better. It's not all our defense. Look at the positions they put us in. And essentially just suggesting that gays should be gone. And gays should be gone.

It's unbelievable. The Jets acted like they were mad. But I just wanted to watch the Jets defense against the Miami offense. And honestly, the Jets defense is good enough to win football. games. It is. They're good enough to win ball games. Yeah, they have no talent on offense.

None. I know you think Gase is terrible. That's fine. You're probably right. They don't have one legitimate offensive skill position player. Well, it aids in my conversation about why Gaze is terrible because he's also part of picking his offense. Right.

Like when you're leading receivers, freaking parriman. Yeah. You got big time problems. Big time problems. And when you can't get along with one of the best backs in the league to make it work,

Frank Gore. No, not Frank Gore. They traded him this week. Yeah, I know. Frank Gore, everyone gets along. It's nice to see Frank Gore get some carries. Right. But God, Joe Flacco is so bad.

Well, I mean, so bad. I don't want to talk about that game anymore. Yeah, why would you? The game I wanted to talk about, And it's not because of your stepson, Kirk Cousins, who threw three bad picks in the first half. It's because it was my lock of the week.

Oh, right. It was your lock of the week. And this just continues to play out is so true. I think you'd have to go back and look at it over the history of time, but especially over the last 10 years, when your head coach gets fired, especially when there's a guy that people like. Like Rahim Morris.

Rahim Morris, who's, I think, incredible. you win the next game. And I told you, if you wanted to, I shied away from it just to play the game. I said, my lock of the week's not Atlanta to cover of the three in this game. It's to win outright. They'll win outright. They smoked Minnesota.

I mean, they absolutely smoked them. Matt Ryan was incredible. I have been so good with the Vikings and the smell test. That is four straight winners involving the Vikings. I had them plus against the, the Titans winner, had them plus against the Texans winner, I had them plus against the Seahawks winner, and I had the Falcons plus against them getting the short number winner. I actually was really close to giving them out in week two, giving the Colts out against them in week two and didn't

do it. But yeah, I mean, look, I told you one of the reasons that the line was short, not because of the coaching change, but because of the devastating Sunday night loss and now, you know, there's, first of all, Atlanta's capable offensively. They've been capable offensively, and they were, they were going to be healthy yesterday, which they were. They had Julio Jones. They had everybody back. By the way, Julio's one of my fantasy players. A catch is 137 yards, two touchdowns. I also have Calvin Ridley. He had six catches, 61 yards, and a touchdown. So they're capable offensively Atlanta is. And I told you that the line was more likely short. than not because A, Dalvin Cook was out, but B, when you have that kind of devastating loss that

Minnesota had and now you kind of feel like the season's over, like that was your chance to get back into it, there was going to be a letdown. They sucked, and so did my boy. He was terrible. He threw three first half interceptions or three interceptions, you know, early on. One of them was a deflection. The other two were horrible throws. And he said, after the game. You know, Zimmer was asked after the game, did he think about pulling Kirk? And he said no.

And then Cousin said, if this continues, because he's now, he's right now in the midst, statistically from an interception standpoint and turnover standpoint, he's got 10 interceptions in, what is it, five games, six games? He's got 10. He's not quite on pace for the 30-30 mark that James Winston came up with, but he's not far off of it. Right. God, he knew the first play of the game was a pick, and it was so ugly.

He threw it right into coverage. It was like, whoa, I couldn't believe that. I'm actually surprised. It's not a good football team this year, but he hasn't elevated it by any chance. Last week, he was sensational down the stretch and gave him a chance to win, and they really should have won that game. and yesterday his three picks were devastating and they really didn't have much of a chance to recover from that. So that team's done. And there are a couple of other teams that were supposed to be better that are done.

Actually, I wouldn't say Philly's done. Would you say Philly's done? I don't think Philly's done. I just don't think Philly has the firepower. I know that they came back in that game. they were way down in that ball game. Oh, yeah, they were down 20.6. Yeah, it was a domination.

Like right now in the NFC East, I think if you told me right now if Philadelphia wins the NFC East with a 7-8 and 1 record or something, or 6-9 and 1, I believe that. If we beat Dallas, if Washington were to beat Dallas next week, someone could win this division with six wins. Oh, no doubt, no doubt. I'm trying to think Dallas doesn't

If Dallas and Philly doesn't get a win here really quick It's a six-win division I know what I wanted to ask you about the 49er game Raheem Mostert I bet you the Shanahan's just drool over how good

of a zone running back he is First of all Incredible vision Incredible as you say It always pressing pressing and then cutting it back And then exceptionally speed and run so hard.

He's really a good back. I don't even really, I barely even remember him at Purdue. Barely even remember him. He got cut in Cleveland. God, he's good. I remember when I was out with the Hugh Jackson staff, they were talking about Mostert. And no one could believe that he was doing what he's doing in San Francisco.

Like, that guy, Mostert, we cut him. it's fitting the right guy to the right scheme in so many ways in the NFL no doubt all right let's take a break there's just no question about it all right let's take a break because i want to tell you about my bookie dot a g and then we'll just have a couple of picks on the two games we've got two games tonight one that starts at five o'clock on a monday the chiefs at bills crazy year we're in the midst of. But want to tell you about mybooky.ag. I, somebody tweeted me and said, you don't bet what this book, do you? I do. I have an account. I use, I have a couple of accounts. I use this one. Their numbers very often are better than the numbers. I'm getting anywhere else.

I can tell you that. So the most important thing, as I've mentioned many times in the past, is you just want a place that you can trust if you're going to bet. You know, and this is, is a place that you can trust if you're going to bet. MyBooky.ag gives you a chance to get quality lines, quality pricing, every which way you want to bet on a game, you can bet on a game. And if you use my promo code right now, Kevin D.C., they will match your deposit dollar for dollar all the way up to $1,000. So even if you have another spot, I would recommend opening up an account with MyBooky, getting the deposit match using my promo code, Kevin, DC. Plus, they've got a lot of cool, you know, categories of betting opportunities,

including all of the stuff related to the election. MyBooky.ag, my promo code, Kevin, D.C. Before we get to the two Monday night games and then wrap it up, Cooley, Nick Sabin coached in that game Saturday night. You know, positive COVID-19 tests, and all of a sudden, very conveniently, two back-to-back negative tests. oh, must have been a false positive. Let's get coached down on the sideline.

Line, by the way, went from six and a half to four, then back to six when he decided to coach. That game had so much NFL talent on the field and the speed defensively. There's something about teams when they're loaded on defense with speed that just looks so good. Georgia has it. Bama has it. LSU's had it in past years. But they also have speed at receiver. My God, they're so excited.

explosive offensively. And they won that game. They were down 24-20 at halftime and won the game 41 to 24. I just thought it was interesting that saved it. I thought that was a fun game to watch because Georgia has a ton of talent offensively too. Georgia has a big-time receiver. Just throw up to that dude every time. I think the quarterback. I thought the quarterback was okay until late, until late when he really had to press when they were down. He didn't look overwhelmed in any way I didn't think so. All right Alabama. Stetson Bennett, I thought before he threw those interceptions, I thought that physically showed, he looks tiny, but I thought physically he showed some things

that he could move, he could run when he had to run, he made some big time throws. But, golly, Atlanta's just unbelievable. Alabama, yeah. By the way, of all their receivers, like in recent years, Judy and Rugs, and this year it'll be waddle. and Smith. To me the guy, I mean, look, I love Judy, and I love rugs, and they're burners. Smith, Devonte Smith, is the one that can't run, or it runs well enough, but isn't the 4-2-4-3 burner. But to me, he looks like he's going to be a great wide receiver in the NFL. He's got great hands. He runs great routes. He's got some, you know, there's something about

his football IQ. How often you see him come back for a ball. ball and snag it in front of coverage. I like that guy. I think he's going to be really good, really good. I think that's it. Oh, the two Monday night games. Oh, by the way, the Dodgers game was exciting. I was watching that last night too. I was actually very happy that they won. I want to see Kershaw get a World Series. I want to see him pitch well in this World Series. What did you say? He had back spasms last week. Yeah, I know, but he ended up pitching in game five. and lost and didn't pitch.

Hopefully he's healthy. I gave Buffalo out as a smell test pick on Friday, plus five. The number's five, five and a half right now. I actually like Arizona a little bit tonight too, a little bit, not an official play. But man, the Cowboys with Andy Dalton tonight,

first of all, the Bill's Chiefs game should be a really good game. I told you that I think something's off with the Chiefs a little bit. I'm interested to see what they do today. It is today, basically, 5 o'clock kick. You know the crazy thing about this game? This is a 5 o'clock Eastern start. Yeah, that's what I, were you listening? Is there an echo on here?

It means it's a 3.m. Eastern, 3 p.m. Wyoming start. Yeah, they were concerned about that. This game started at 3 o'clock for me. Yeah, 3 o'clock now. And I'm going to watch this game because I want to watch this game. Yeah.

Should be a good game. I want to watch. These are, it should be two good games. How about if the- I'm excited to see what Andy Dalton does. How about if the Cowboys lose? and they are two and four, and they come to FedEx next week, and they lose that in Washington's two and five and in first place.

I just don't, I think Dallas, if you're going to give one out, I think Dallas is going to win this game. I'm not, I think I'm going to. I think they'll play hard. It'll be a play for DAC game. I think they're much more talented football team than Arizona. Dallas still has a good defensive line. They'll get after Kyler Murray.

He's going to make a couple mistakes tonight. Dallas is going to be more efficient on offense running the football. I think Dallas wins this game pretty easily. I'm not going to. I'd lean Arizona, but I'm not. I probably play it. I think I am going to play Buffler. No, I hear you.

I mean, Dallas's defense, anything can happen. Kyler Murray could have 172 yards rushing and 245 yards passing, and it could be 45 to 28. I mean, I see that. I just think Dallas plays a better football. game this week. Buffalo played on Tuesday night. Let's not forget that, but it's six days later, not five like Tennessee had to play. Everybody keeps saying Kansas City lost last week to the Raiders to Vegas, so they're not going to lose two in a row. We'll see. I think Buffalo's going to give them

a really, really good game this afternoon, or this afternoon for you, this evening for me. And I think... Late afternoon. I think Buffalo's really good. And I think something is just a bit off with the Chiefs. Doesn't mean that I don't think they have a chance to, you know, by January it be really good. But maybe this is an opportunity for the bills. It would be very, you know, the game we did mention it and we talked too long about it. Do you know, a Buffalo loss, Miami is a game out of first in the AFC East, and that's the team you probably have to start being focused on as maybe a legitimate AFC East contender, Miami. Anyway, all right, anything else from you? No.

Me neither. No. Go enjoy your Wyoming Day. Everybody else out there enjoy the day. Cooley will have the offensive film breakdown tomorrow.